Arms Race!
Arms Race! is set in the heart of the Cold War. With tensions rising between the two remaining world powers, it seems that nuclear apocalypse is inevitable....Just make sure it doesn't happen to you! With low region and usually low troop counts but bountiful region bonuses, quick, decisive, and exciting games are the norm. Features Autodeploy: Owned bunker regions in each country get +2 added to them at the beginning of the occupying player's turn Bombardments: Spies can bombard the opposing country's Launch Code, President/Premier, and Scientists. The missile launch region can bombard any region in the opposing country, including all of its missile stages. Collections: Hold a combination of the Launch Code, President or Premier, and all the Missile regions (except for Missile Launch) to obtain a +50 troops bonus in addition to those region bonuses. Double Dipping: President or Premier and that country’s launch code combine for a collection bonus. Dead Space: Many regions on the map will not count for a bonus, because this map has no zone bonuses. Individual region bonuses and region count advantages are all you get; except for the collection bonus. Killer Neutral Regions: Missile Launch regions revert to a neutral 15 if controlled by a player at the beginning of a turn. Naming Challenges: Region names are written in a complex way occasionally causing deployment mistakes; be sure you know which silo or bunker you want to deploy on or reinforce. One Way Borders:Several regions on both sides of the map are dead ends. Starting Neutrals:Bonus regions, missile regions, spies, and silos always begin as neutral regions. Important fact The main unique point about Arms Race! is that once a player's visa to visit one of the two countries expires (once a player is eliminated from one side of the map) the player will not get a chance to return. Instead, the player must resort to bombarding regions from spies and race for the missile launch to annihilate the opponent. 1v1 Because Arms Race! is truly a conquest map at heart (the objective being to hold the missile, launch, and president/premier collection for the 50 troops bonus, which virtually assures victory), there are several key steps in almost any given game. The main first objective in any Arms Race! game is to control a bonus quickly. Each player receives six regions at the game initialization, so will get 3 troops to deploy. If playing with fog of war, deploy these troops away from the other player's line of sight, so they will not know which bonus regions you hold. Try not to conquer a bonus region that is immediately adjacent to an opposing player region, and remember to avoid regions where your opponent could start on the other side. If possible, deploy these troops on three different bonus-adjacent regions to increase the chances of winning more than one bonus in the round. Early in the game, it is generally best to aim for president/premier or launch code, as it gives you an immediate +2 bonus. Bunkers are also very good early bonuses, as they can be used for a continued attack on the next round. After you hold a nice bonus, it's time to consolidate your assault force. The objective in this stage is to clear the opponent out of the country you have decided to concentrate in (by taking a bonus in it the first round). Another option is to try to retain strength in both countries; which strategy is most viable depends on where the players were initially dropped. If you are dropped near isolated bonuses on both sides of the map, retaining strength in both countries is viable; otherwise, attempting to stay strong in both countries can cost you the game. As you advance in either side of the map, take the uranium regions for the additional troop bonus they yield. While scientist regions can also yield the +1 troop bonus, uranium regions are more beneficial because scientist regions can be bombarded by the opposing country spy, but uranium regions cannot. If the player is able to maintain strength on both sides of the map, assault the opponent away from any bonus and other regions in each country. In most games, however, each player will ultimately strengthen in only one side of the map, in which case you will need to get to your missile to finish off the opponent. If your opponent has bombarded both your President/Premier and Launch Code, it is generally pointless to try and hold them (even though that +50 troop bonus is oh so tempting). They will have troops left over each round to neutralize the regions again. Rather than waste your troop deployments round after round in this manner, use the troops to strengthen for an assault on the missile up to the warhead, aiming for additional troops due to region count advantage rather than the collection bonus. Once you have a stack of about 30 troops and, if playing with spoils, a high-value set, it's time to strike. Deploy all on the Warhead and conquer the Missile Launch. From there, target bonus regions that cannot be bombarded with the spy regions (uranium and bunker regions); opponent missile regions; and reinforcement lines through the cities. Use every troop you sent to Missile Launch; you cannot fort away from Missile Launch and at the start of your next turn, the region will reset to 15 neutral troops. The Missile Launch killer neutral feature is why you need to have a sufficient stack of troops before conquering the region. This first strike might be sufficient to annihilate the opponent. If so, congratulations! If not, on your next turn, consider whether you were successful at neutralizing spy regions and reinforcement chains. If you were, you might consider retaking your Launch Code and President (US) or Premier (USSR) regions - now that your opponent is unlikely to have sufficient troops to get back to the spy with strength enough to neutralize these regions. If you do obtain that +50 troop bonus on the next turn, obviously you aim again for the Missile Launch and bombard your opponent off the face of the map. Team games Just as two player games are the most popular setting, two-team doubles is the overwhelming favorite for team games, comprising 90% of finished team games. Triples games are the next closest runner-up, comprising 4% of the team games (but less than 1% of overall games). Other team settings are each about half as popular as triples games. The reason for the polarity is fairly obvious: with so few initial regions per player, the game becomes highly unbalanced with more players. In team games, it is of utmost importance to clear out any members of the opposing team from your country, while trying to maintain a significant presence in theirs. If it's a fog of war game, it is best to give a city in a corner, protected with a neutral, a few troops per round; the opponents will not find this region immediately, but once they do, the stack of troops you accumulated might be your team’s only hope of staying alive in this side of the map. Once you've gotten your opponents out of the country, it is good to delegate tasks. Have one person bombarding, and the other getting the Launch Code + President/Premier. If you are playing trips or quads, you can have two people on the bombarding job (one on each spy), but the other should mostly stay out of the way, giving any deploys to their teammates. Having too many people splitting bonuses can be disastrous when faced with a team that consolidates their forces. This is mainly due to the region count advantage, where the player with 12 or more regions receives additional troops, but is also due in part to the potential collection bonus. Teams are at a disadvantage when they have one person go up the missile while another teammate holds the Launch Code and President (or Premier). On the other hand, do not let this stop the non-shooter teammate(s) from taking an isolated uranium or scientist if the teammate performing the main assaults will not easily reach them. Multiplayer games As mentioned earlier, two player games are far and away the most popular setting for Arms Race! Three player games are the most popular multiplayer games; like two-player doubles, they are about 6% of play on Arms Race! Eight player games are unpopular, but not as unpopular as 7 player games. The moral of this story is still that fewer players make a better Arms Race! In a no spoils game, you should get the bonuses in your immediate area, and keep a bunker on the edge of your troop base. Then you can just deploy on that bunker while the others fight it out. In a spoils game, you need to keep attacking, so it's best to either pick off the bonus regions adjacent to you, one at a time; or to slowly advance through the country, munching on any delicious single-troop regions your opponents leave open for you . Once you are strong enough, you should make a run through the entire country, ensuring that every player has been completely knocked out of your country, or at least weakened so thoroughly that you will be able to eliminate them within one or two rounds. Hopefully there will still be people fighting on the other side, so you won't have to worry about having an entire country's undivided attention. At the point you have taken over one side of a map, your tactics should revert to the tactics you would use with two player games, except that once you get to your missile, which opponent you target depends on spoils setting. In a spoils game, eliminate a weaker opponent to take those spoils. In a game without spoils, target the stronger opponent first; that way, you do not eliminate the threat he will have from that weaker opponent you left alive to nip at his heels. If an opponent manages to take over one side of a map, diplomacy - to truce with other, weaker, opponents on your side of the map - is definitely needed. Otherwise, if you and your opponents keep assaulting each other to control your side of the map and turn the game into two-player, you're allowing the player on the other side of the world ample time to assault that missile to launch a strike that annihilates all of you. settings Recommended settings Two player games are a favorite for Arms Race! Over 77% of all games on this map are two player games, where each player fights to control the US or the USSR. Two player games are more straightforward; and with fog of war there is the added mystery of the Red Scare....who knows how powerful they really are?. Any higher amount of players will eventually degenerate to each team controlling one side of the map and racing to launch nuclear strikes, but in two-player games it happens a lot quicker. This map plays well with many settings, but to quote the poet Robert Browning, "less (players) is more" on Arms Race! Manual deployments These games can be a lot of fun, or can be decided in the first few rounds. If opposing players happen to stack their troops adjacent to each other, those 8 (four player games) or 12 (two- and three-player games) troops will smack into each other early on, and intensity cubes will decide the outcome. If opposing players stack their troops away from each other, the game will be rousing fun. With more than four players, the game could be decided by which players get the first turns, but will more likely be decided by the initial drop: you could have a corner region on both sides of the map, giving you time to build up strength before you need to make assaults. Spoils Arms Race! works well with any spoils setting. Because the map has so many bonuses, spoils are unnecessary to add troops, so playing with no spoils is fun. With flat rate spoils, an early rainbow (one of each color) spoils set may allow a player to control one side of the map, but 10 troops is unlikely to enable the player to control both sides. Escalating spoils just adds to the natural later-round suspense on this map; no player is likely to control the game in early rounds, just as no player will have a large escalating cash in early rounds. By the time cashes get large enough, players are likely racing for that missile launch anyway. Similarly, nuclear spoils falls in line with the map’s natural play: there is not much difference between nuking a region with a spoils cash than bombarding a region with a spy except that with nuclear spoils, you might get lucky enough to nuke opponent bunkers or unlucky enough to annihilate your own bunker. Game types Assassin Avoid assassin games on Arms Race! These games are more likely to be determined by the initial drop. Each player will start with only 2 or 3 regions; if the target in your scope is on your side of the map, victory is very easy. If the target is on the other side of the map, victory is nearly impossible. Terminator Like Assassin games, Terminator games are likely to be determined by the initial drop. With so few regions per player, and with one side of the map frequently unavailable to any player, any opponent region you conquer might be to another opponent’s favor. Still, with a fortunate drop, Terminator games offer the opportunity to gain points by eliminating any opponent. Try to stay alive on both sides of the map, sneaking only isolated bonuses, until you are strong enough to annihilate an opponent’s last region. Additional notes General strategy Keep in mind that the USSR and USA are virtually identical, save for a few name changes, but not totally identical. They each have some minor benefits and pitfalls. For example, a player who owns the US Bunker 1 region gets a +2 troop autodeploy that can assault a scientist for another +1 troop bonus while the USSR Bunker 1 region and its +2 troop autodeploy can assault a uranium region for a +1 troop bonus. While the scientist region on the US side is vulnerable to bombardment from an opposing spy region, USSR silo regions are farther from either bunker region than those on the US side. *If you manage to control your entire country, while holding even a single region in the opposing player's country, you should deploy almost all in their country in order to thwart their plans. *If you get eliminated from one country, ensure your opponents are entirely eliminated from yours. Otherwise they will use the above tactic to easily sweep you. Bonus regions *Launch Code and President/Premier give a +2 bonus each and are invaluable in the early stages of the game when an opponent is unlikely to hold a spy to take it from you immediately. Later on, however, they will be the first region targeted by an opposing spy. Held together, and with the entire missile up to the Warhead, they will receive an additional +50 bonus, but don't waste 20 armies trying to reinforce them. Those 20 armies could have been used to take Missile Launch and bombard the opponent away from key regions. *Uraniums give a +1 bonus each. They are also the only regions which give a bonus to your deploy count that cannot be bombarded. This makes them invaluable in the later stages of the game when you and your opponent(s) are separated in the USSR and USA. *Scientists give a +1 bonus each. As they can be bombarded, and give the same bonus as the uranium regions, they are the least helpful of all bonus regions. Early on, your opponent(s) might not have a spy, so you could grab a scientist for quick +1 troop bonus to help you secure your chosen country. Apart from that, they are not worth the troops it would cost to hold (or reclaim) against an opponent’s spy bombardment. *The Missile Launch region does not revert back to a neutral 15 at the beginning of your turn unless you control it. So, if you wish, you can whittle it down to a low amount, say a 2 or 3, several rounds before you have your assault force ready. *Bunkers give a +2 autodeploy bonus each. They also cannot be bombarded, but because the bonus is autodeployed, they are most useful in the early stages of the game, when you are trying to clear out your enemies from the country you want to control. In chained or unlimited reinforcements, their bonus can be useful in helping you make your way up the missile, otherwise they can be used to slowly reinforce other nearby bonuses. *Spy regions are exceedingly useful in the mid to late stages of the game. If you have secured your country of choice, but didn't manage to keep at least one region in the other, the spies are your only link to the opposition (other than the Missile Launch). Spies can bombard Scientists, Presidents/Premiers, and Launch Codes, so with them you can prevent your opponents(s) from holding the deadly +50 missile bonus and keep them from deploying a high amount of troops every turn. In a spoils game, spies are invaluable tools: deploy on a stack of troops you're trying to expand, and rather than making any unnecessary assaults, bombard one of the regions in the opposing country. It's best to bombard a region with only 1 troop on it, as it poses the smallest risk of loss. Do not put too many troops on spies because most players will eventually figure out that taking the bonus regions that your spy bombards targets is wasting their troops. Once they stop assaulting those bonus regions, any troops you have on your spy are wasted. This is a particular concern with adjacent reinforcements, where you need several rounds to move valuable troops to a useful region. Reinforcements Chained reinforcements give balanced play, while unlimited reinforcements will speed up the play, and make taking the bunkers even more valuable; autodeploy bonus troops from bunkers or extra troops from the spy regions can be rapidly moved to needed areas. Players can Arms Race! with any spoils setting, but I do not recommend playing with adjacent reinforcements. Adjacent reinforcements will slow down the play because the linear arrangement of the map will require several rounds of reinforcement moves before the player can use the troops to advantage. The adjacent setting can also result in unbalanced play: the US is probably the most winnable side of the map because bunkers are closer to regions where the troops will be needed.